We have now a new South American country in our bank of experience. Uruguay has really been  a positive surprise.
The people, nice and ready to help you with almost every thing, especially if you are able to talk some Spanish  
Prize level, most things are cheaper than in Brazil, but eating out appears to be more expensive in Uruguay 7,5€ and in Brazil 5€ for the two of us.
Marinas, cheap during off season, but when Argentines have vacation take care!
Landscape, sandy beaches with pine forest on sand. Inland, big field with a lot of cattle and sheeps.
Wildlife, plenty of lobos and birds. Especially the number of small birds and sea birds have increased compared to Brazil. 

Our three weeks in Piriapolis disappeared rapidly. Several items to take care of with Lindisfarne. Manufacturing of a day tank to the stove has a long time been a useful improvement but not executed, so that was on top of our list before leaving for Patagonia.
The most difficult of the project was the exchange of the engine water pump. There had been a small leakage since we crossed the Atlantic, and that had to came to an end. The work involved dismantling a lot of part of the engine such as crankshaft wheel, camshaft wheel, the wheel for the injection pump and so on.    When half of the dismantling was done we discovered that we could avoid the rest by cutting the aft protection shield  for the belt in three, saving us several hours and some of the most difficult parts of the work.   When the pump was free it was very clear that the bearing in the pump was leaking. We where lucky to have a spare pump among all our spare parts. The old pump was 2000 hour and we hope that the new one will live longer.     

We did a tour to Montevideo. More than one third of the 3,5 milj Uruguayans live in the city.  It's difficult to get the right impression of such a big city in half a day, but we where lucky to have a guide. Our deliverer of the stainless day tank to the stow hade his office in the town and he took care of us and showed us around, including a very pleasant lunch in the old market hall, close to the harbour. Talk about friendly people!
The old market hall was today totally refurbished and now used by numerous of barbecue restaurants with magnificent fireplaces sparkling everywhere. It's quite obvious that meat is King in Uruguay.
The city has many avenues and  with trees on both side and around, which give an impression of a green city, in spite that some part are a bit shabby and very greyish.

We had planed to sail south via Buenos Aries, but the extra 220 nm in this shallow estuary didn't sound very exiting, and on top of that it is much cheaper and comfortable to go to BsAs from Mar del Plata instead of taking the ferry from Uruguay.

So we did our paperwork with the authorities left Piriapolis and sailed over Rio dela Plata to Mar del Plata where we as usual arrived in the dark four a'clock in the morning the 29 of October.

Argentina, a new country with new formalities. But before that some words about the harbour and the marina. The approach into the main harbour is quite shallow and you have to stay close to the western pier, the eastern have a nasty sandbar where waves break already in 15 kn wind. When you past the pier it's quite easy to catch a buoy behind an inner pier, protecting the inlet to the marina. You have to wait at a buoy because the inlet is covered by a swing bridge.

After sleeping some hours, we called the Yacht club Argentina, one of four clubs in the marina!, and the bridge opened. Very slowly we entered the marina. It's quite small, and the space for making any mistake does not exist. We managed to manoeuvre into a god but shallow berth. We are down in the mud by low tide.
Now it was time for paperwork. The representative for the Prefektura in the marina told us immediate go to the office of the Prefektura and Immigration. So we went away, only 10 minutes walk, only to find that they wanted us back next morning because it was Sunday! Monday morning Immigration and Prefektura was rapidly done, but coming to the customs, they wanted a paper from the Health department, declaring the ship was healthy. So away we went, finding that before they issued such a paper we had to go to a specific Bank and pay 50 peasos. Showing the recite from the Bank we got our paper declaring that the ship was free of rats and so on...  Back to the customs they did a lot of paperwork and then asked us to come back tomorrow and collect our paper.
This paperwork is frustrating. There are  rules for big ships which the different departments follow according their mood for the day. Several sailors we meet have different stories to tell about their behaviour in the same harbour. Obviously you shall expect the unexpected things to happen every time you are in contact with the Authorities, not to be frustrated and upset, because that makes of course things much worse. Patience and time are probably the answer to solve all this troubles.

Now it was time for our trip to Buenos Aries. The bus across Pampas took 5 hours to almost now no costs. Very comfortable busses with 1+2 seats that are foldable almost to horizontal position. We saw more cows on this trip than in our entire life! Meat is definitely King even in Argentina. 
Now we had to find a hotel which turned out not to be that easy. Buenos Aries is a 13 million city and with a lot of tourist and businessmen free hotel room where rare. The fifth hotel had one, lucky us, and after leaving our luggage we hit the city.
We of course started with the harbour (where else?) and to meet our friends from Norway in Empire. Not only they where in the Poerto Madero marina, a Swedish yacht Owerseas 40 whith Lars and Pauli whom we met in Croatia 2003. They where very pleased with having spend the winter here in BsAs. Then we spend the rest of the evening in a local restaurant together with the crew of Empire. The meat was excellent, very big portions and cheap. Cheaper than in Uruguay and with god wine, no need to order anything but the red of the house.
The next morning we booked a night bus to Iguazo, 1500 km to the north in the corner of Paranaguay, Brazil and Argentina to see the famous waterfalls. We spend lunch and a pleasant afternoon on a nice balcony on 9th floor together with Susana. We met her in Vitoria, Brazil, when she was sailing north, and she invited us to here flat in BsAs. Around five we had to leave to catch the bus for 16 hours ride from Pampas to the jungle. The bus had the same comfortable quality as the bus the day before and the prize 30 € is quite cheap.

In Iguazo we had a transfer to our hotel on the Brazilian side and after a lunch and a stroll in the area we just relaxed the rest of the day. The next morning we where collected at the hotel and transported to the Cataract on the Argentinean side. Walking along gangways over and beside the falls takes a full day in the Argentinean part of the falls and we where lucky with the weather, sun and no rain (except all the water that came from the falls).  Coming back to the hotel it didn't hurt to go into the pool. Here in the jungle the temperature and humidity are quite high, and this together with all those stairs on the gangways we needed that pool.
The last day we had thunder and lightning with heavy rain. In spite of that we managed to do the Brazilian side and even got some photos in the greyish light. The Brazilian side is much lesser and is even during  normal condition done in 2 - 3 hours. We felt very pleased to have had the sun the day before when we really needed it. Then the night bus back to BsAs.

Susana who worked as a tourist guide in BuA had a city tour with an English group, and if the bus was in time we where invited to come along. The bus arrived in time and we got a perfect shortcut to the history, known and anknownd people and buildings of Buenos Aries and Argentina.

We thougt in Funchal, Madeira, in April that their Jackaranda trees where fantastic, but this, our third blossom this year!, was even more fantastic. We had lunch together with the group in a nice Italien restaurant in Poerto Madero.
After that we strolled around in the harbour and finally ended up in Susans flat. She had lent us the key to the apartment and we spent the afternoon relaxing, having a shower before taking a taxi ten o'clock in the evening to the last part of Susana's arrangement for this day. Tango show in the Boca area.
It was a very spectacular show around the history of Argentina and the Tango with many very skilled dancers, often with very small dresses. So there where a lot of legs in the air to be seen! One o'clock the show was finished and we thanked Susana for all her efforts and took a taxi to the bus station for another night bus, this time home to Lindisfarne in Mar del Plata.  We where surprised to find us sitting in a completely full buss, starting just before two o'clock in the morning, this is definitely not Europe! We arrived to our yacht around 8, quite exhausted. We where pleased that we had been experienced  so much during this few days, three hotel nights and three "bus nights". Without Susana the result of the trip had been very much less.

Back in the yacht we had to restart with all our "musts" before take off south. One of the important things was cleaning the diesel tanks, and of course filling them with clean diesel. We had to walk 500 m with a 30 l jerry can, what an exercise.  

Mar del Plata marina is a small crowded marina, so when our Swedish friends with their 62 footer Yaghan came, there had to be some moving around with the "small" yachts to make room. We celebrated this with a dinner together in Lindisfarne compeering our experience from the trip from Sweden.   

Wednesday the 15th a new record was at hand, 4 Swedish yachts in the marina of total 13.  Cabo de Hornos whom we met in Salvador and Sawubona who had wintered in Piriapolis. We where, together with a Norwegian yacht, 10 people from Scandinavian at a restaurant that evening,  

We do hope that we shall be ready to leave for the south when the next northerly comes, if not we have to wait for the next.

We have revised our plan to go back to Piriapolis after Beagle canal. We think it's not wise  to sail the very tuff Argentinean coast three times! We will come back to this issue later.

25 November 2006
Annika & Björn
S/Y Lindisfarne

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